


The Vow

by Nao



Series: The True Song [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, based on that bit in the trailer with Jon standing in front of the weirwood tree, this doesn't really follow the previous piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 22:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nao/pseuds/Nao
Summary: Jon contemplates his parentage.





	The Vow

Ghost appeared at his side, as suddenly as the snow that had shaken down from the skies that morning.  Jon ran his fingers between the wolf’s ears.  With his bone white fur and flaming eyes, he fit the godswood like he’d been born to it.  As though it was his place.  Jon sank to his knees, tugging off his gloves.  He’d missed Ghost almost as much as he’d missed home, and let himself get lost in threading his fingers through the wolf’s ruff, wiry rough atop and soft underneath.  Ghost nosed at him and settled onto his haunches in the snow, tongue lolling happily.  

“At least one of us looks like we belong here,” Jon murmured, eyes tracking to the heart tree’s carved face. 

“Do you remember the first time Father brought us here?”  Jon leapt to his feet, hand dropping to the sword the Old Bear had given him, but it was gone.  He’d laid it aside after Bran had told him.  It was even less his than it had been before.  And this was Sansa, he’d realized, who was not about to stab him with a blade.  He sighed, deep from his chest.  He hadn’t wanted to see anyone after Bran. 

“Aye.  I do,” he replied, haltingly.  He didn’t turn round.  “Robb and I over here, you and Arya next, then Bran, and Father held Rickon in his arms.  He hadn’t the patience to sit still; he never did.”  

Sansa paced closer, her shoulder brushing his.  The glint of her hair caught his eye, and despite himself, he turned a little to look at her.  She met his gaze, looking a little stern as her father had looked when last he had seen him.  She looped her arm with his and faced the tree.   

“Do you remember what he said?”

“This is your place, he said.  As much as the crypts will be one day the place where you shall rest, this place is yours.”  Jon scoffed, the noise escaping strangled around the pain in his throat.  “I knew even then that Winterfell wasn’t for me.  I dreamed of it; of the Kings of Winter coming to tell me that I did not belong, that I was no true Stark.”

The arm under her hand was grasped tight, and Sansa pulled on it until Jon swung to face her.  Nothing about her was stern now, “This _is_ your place.  You are one of us, and nothing anyone says can make that untrue.”  Jon kept silent, anger burning a gnawing hole in his chest.  When she shook him, the words erupted despite himself.  

“This isn’t my place!  My whole life has been a lie.”  He tugged his arm away from her and roughly hauled his gloves back on, tears blurring his vision.  Swallowing thickly, he took a step away.  Her voice stopped him.

Sansa pressed close again, turning him until they were face to face.  “I know you must be angry and want to leave all this and never think on any of it.  But if you can bear it, I have a request to make of you.”  Jon shook his head before replying, “I may be no true Stark, but I will always keep my word.”

“It’s true that you are not my brother,” her hands moved to take his.  “Since he and Aunt Lyanna were married, you are Rhaegar’s last trueborn son and heir and the one with the strongest claim to the throne.  Even so, your place is not in the South, not on the Iron Throne, and not with her.  No matter who your sire was.”  She paused, eyes locked to his.  

“And we find ourselves here at the heart tree, where my father taught us to tell no falsehoods, where anything of importance must happen.  Where vows are sworn.”  Sansa halted, a flush creeping across her cheeks and nose.   Jon looked at her, feeling doubtful.  She could not mean what he thought.  No matter that they were cousins now.  He was still as dirty as he had been before, when he was her bastard half-brother.  

“Sansa...” Jon began unsure of how to forestall her.  

Sansa interrupted, unyielding, as she ever was, “All that’s left is to say the words.”

“The last thing you need is a husband, especially not one like me,” Jon returned, trying to hide how her words had sent his mind spinning.  He felt as though a band around his heart had finally been released, and the relief that flooded him made him ill with guilt.  He looked away from her bright gaze, down at his feet.  

“I know you have had suitors,” Jon tried, feeling as though he must say something.  Even if her father and mother were not watching them, even if he was no true son of Eddard Stark, he still had a responsibility to ensure the safety of his children.  

“I’d rather you than Littlefinger or anyone like him.”  At those words, Jon met Sansa’s eyes again.  She surveyed him for a long minute.  “Are you going to let that happen?”

“Obviously not.”  Jon replied, knowing he’d been tricked into saying it.  Sansa gave a brief flicker of a smile before it disappeared.  “Then say the words Jon; take the vows with me.  Let me protect you this once.”

“It’s not just this once!  It would be for the rest of your life.”  

She huffed, irritation muddling the fine skin of her brow.  “Oh do shut up.  What do you think I’ve been doing since you went South to treat with Daenerys?”

“And what about Daenerys?”  Jon said, still bewildered, still trying to find a way out of the maze of words she’d constructed.  

“We will work together on that, just as we’ve worked together on everything else,” Sansa replied.  “You know her now, and if you have been lying with her, that does not mean you intend to marry her.  And there’s no guarantee that she _wants_  to marry you, presumed son of a traitor that you are.”

“And the lords?  Our bannermen would never stand for it.  They’d kill me as soon as look at me—,” Jon asked, seizing on the last reasonable objection he could think of.  At that Sansa scoffed a laugh.  

“Where do you think I’ve been this day?  Crying in my chamber about Father’s lie?  There’s no time for that.  Arya and I have been busy.”   She squeezed his hands, and Jon looked down at them.  If he were honest, and before the weirwood he ought to be, his uncle’s lie had saved his life.  It had made it possible for him to do what needed to be done on that ship.

Yet, no matter how Sansa couched it, to marry her was no duty.  It was a reward, a gift, and one he had done nothing to deserve.  But when he looked into her face, he wanted to take what she offered and damn the consequences.  He wanted to be free of watching his words and his hands and his eyes around her.  He wanted to hold her all the rest of the days remaining to him, without shame.  

“But do you want this Sansa?” Jon asked finally, still looking down at their hands.  A marriage would solidify his position, but it would do little for her besides adding to her worries.  

“I would give you my name Jon, and this time it would be my choice.  You need not worry about anything more than that,” Sansa replied.   

“I’ll always worry,” Jon said, quietly.  And that was true.  He’d worried about her alone in the North with Littlefinger and the other lords.  He’d worried more when he’d seen Lady Brienne and Podrick in Kings Landing, rather than at her side.  And what good had it done?  Sansa had protected them all— she and Arya, with no help from him.  

If she was willing to take on another burden, then by what right did he hesitate?  He could imagine the looks she would receive, though.  They would be the looks he had received and tried to ignore for all of his years.  If Sansa were married to him, even if he was no true bastard, being a trueborn Targaryen was no better; not with the example Daenerys was setting before them.   

“Jon,” Sansa raised a hand to his cheek, unsmiling, but still tender.  “Unless you dislike me,” Jon shook his head, a brief twitch, "help me protect you, like my father did. 

“Why are you so calm?” Jon asked finally.  Had she known of his feelings all this time?  His heart raced of its own accord, and he ached to touch her, to kiss her, to make her forget duty and protecting one another.  To make her forget anything but the two of them together.  

Jon forced himself to go on, looking Sansa in the eye, every word feeling like a jagged stab.  “You deserve better than me.  You deserve all the happiness in the world.  I don’t deserve give this to you, sweet girl, much as I would wish to.”  His skin prickled with sweat.

Sansa frowned at him.  “What makes you think Jon, that I intend to wait for you to _give_  me anything at all?   _You_ need the protection of _my_ name.  It so happens that I, and the rest of our family, need you here in the North, and this happens to be the best way to keep you here and our bannermen from killing you.  And since you can’t keep me safe if you’re dead, and I quite like the idea of marrying you, I’ll see you tonight after supper with our witnesses.  With that she turned away from him, called to Ghost sweetly, and marched away.  

Jon stood dumbfounded, mouth a little agape, watching Sansa and his direwolf walk away from him.  When he could no longer spy her hair amongst the snow covered trees, Jon turned to the heart tree and scrubbed a hand over his face.  He had begged her once, to trust in him, to let him keep her safe.  Perhaps the gods were real, after all.


End file.
